CEO Banned for $2 Million Embezzlement

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The former CEO of now-defunct Northampton-Carbon County FCU was barred from the credit union industry for his role in a $2 million embezzlement that sunk the one-time $40 million credit union, NCUA said yesterday. Michael Symons is serving a three-year prison sentence for his crimes, one of several frauds that forced NCUA to liquidate the Allentown, Penn., credit union in 2004. Last year, self-professed “shopaholic” Betty Jean Barachie, a former Nor-Car FCU branch manager, was sentenced to jail for stealing $1.5 million, which she used to finance her compulsive shopping. She told authorities she used the funds to buy hundreds of pairs of shoes, some 3,000 books, 58 coats, 16 chainsaws and a John Deere Tractor, most of which sat piled in her house unused with the price tags still on them. Also banned by NCUA yesterday were: Cindy Hastie, former employee at State Employees CU, for stealing $210,000 from the Jacksonville, Fla., credit union; Alisa Ryan, former teller at Aegis CU, for embezzling $15,000 from the Clinton, Iowa, credit union; and David Call, former CEO of Florida Health Systems FCU, in Miami.